KHARTOUM - As the world prepares
for the year 2000, many Sudanese victims of this year's floods would be
among those welcoming the new year in pain. For them, the beginning of
the year would not be a good reason for happiness, for it would be the
extension of 1999, a year of floods and agonies in the Sudan.

The floods affected millions of Sudan's
population this year and have imposed a pessimism that overshadows the
thinking of the victims.

Nairobi - An eight-month bloody
civil war has raged in Congo-Brazzaville between the army and militias
loyal to ousted President Pascal Lisouba. But despite the intensity of
the fighting and the magnitude of the effects of the conflict on the population,
the war has continued unnoticed by the outside world, which has instead
concentrated its attention on the fighting in neighbouring Democratic Republic
of Congo DRC.

NAIROBI - Rising poverty, widespread
insecurity and the weakness of medical systems of many African states have
brought a fresh response from Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. With
millions deprived of adequate services, a review of needs and priorities
is underway to produce long term national strategies to improve health
care for Africa.

Nairobi - As the Sierra Leone
peace talks in Northern Togo continue to stall, Sierra Leoneans remain
sceptical of its outcome. The announcement that the government is willing
to offer three cabinet and some other bureaucratic positions to the rebels
of the Revolutionary United Front is met with mixed feelings by the Sierra
Leonean public.

They expressed very strong feelings that
the way the talks are going, the government and the international negotiators
are determined to reward the rebels for their atrocities.

Nairobi - Investigations by an international
team during March and April have identified the epidemic that has ravaged
Rumbek County since last year as louse-borne relapsing fever.

Consequently, a plan of outbreak control
has been constituted in consideration of the local circumstances. The action
plan is "based on local surveillance, tiered responses by primary
health care personnel and community health workers supported by NGOs,"
according to a preliminary report of the investigation team.

Khartoum - Sudan's rulers in Khartoum
face many problems other than the civil war in which they have failed to
defeat the rebels from both the south and the north grouped under Eritrea-based
National Democratic Alliance NDA, says AANA Correspondent Tom Heaton.

Not the least of these problems is that
despite many overtures, they have failed in their attempts to entice any
of the Muslim northerners in the NDA back into the fold.

Alexandria, Virginia - The following
document was released by the International Strategic Studies Association
on October 9, 1998:

A new offer of mediation has been made
to end the deadlock in the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, it was
announced today in Washington DC. Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie Haile-Selassie,
President of the Crown Council of Ethiopia and grandson of the late Emperor
Haile Selassie, made the offer at the International Strategic Studies Association's
closed-door conference, Strategy'98: The Global Strategic Forum, in Washington
DC this week.

Sudan's main rebel group SPLA on July 15
declared a unilateral cease-fire to ease relief operations in the famine-stricken
Bahr el-Ghazal province. The government quickly responded by agreeing to
the same. Now pundits are questioning whether the move was humanitarian
or strategic.

There are signs that the United Nations
Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA) is struggling to meet its international
obligations as military attacks by the rebel movement UNITA increase. The
decision by the UN Security Council on 29 April to cut the size of MONUA's
troops from 1,045 to 450 by the end of June has reduced the ability of
MONUA to verify government allegations of attacks by UNITA, at the same
time as military tension has risen in the country.

In mid November 1997, the writer attended
sessions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) being
held in Arusha, northern Tanzania. In this article he argues, in the main,
that because the ICTR is founded on a retributive "paradigm"
of justice, it is unable to foster genuine reconciliation in the central
African nation.
Human Rights
by Babu Ayindo